Daughter-in-law Strikes Harder

Even in her unconscious state, she probably could hear the silent and calculated beeps from every corner of the room. She could still hear inaudible sounds of mumbling and murmuring around her, but her head could not turn to look at what was going on.

Of course, she was certain that she was still alive, but every part of her body felt so heavy that she couldn’t move them. The feeling of people constantly hovering above her body was something she always felt, even if she always slipped back into tiredness and unconsciousness.

Her eyelids were so heavy that she could feel them, and she didn’t seem to remember why she was like that or what had happened. All she could feel was her heart hurting so bad, like someone was stitching it with a needle and thread.

She felt suffocated even while still unconscious, until someone grabbed her arm softly in theirs.

“Ariana. You have to wake up soon, okay? The guilt is killing me. Knowing that you went through so much for me is killing me. I need you to please wake up as you have always done, and look at me again,” Aria began to cry as soon as she ended her sentence.

She had woken up a few weeks after Ariana got transferred to the intensive care unit, and was able to get herself right in even more weeks. The happy news of everything was the fact that she developed a temporary amnesia, that made her forget the bad memories she had with her father and even being a wife at the Miller’s. The only thing she knew was the fact that her sister brought her half-dead.

The doctor that treated her advised that it was probably a good thing that her brain did that, because she could probably both handle and face the truth if she woke up. When she was finally able to grasp everything that had happened to her for months, she was informed that her sister too was receiving treatments.

It has been a battle of sadness, misery, and pain for both sisters to see again, with Ariana’s disorders getting the best of her and her miserably of leaving Dalton. No one could explain what was wrong with her and why she would suddenly cry so many times, and the only person who could tell them was Collin.

He remembered that Ariana called him every time to ask if everything was okay with Dalton, and if the media were not criticizing their family too much. She wanted to know if he looked okay without her, and if he was still trying so hard to find her.

He only video-called once in a week and made one phone call every day, because it broke his heart to see Ariana in her terrible condition. He mostly spoke to Aria about how things have been for her twin sister, without going into full details about the Miller family and how they have messed things up.

Knowing that Aria had even forgotten about them was sort of a happiness for him, because he could not stand having to explain how things had been after she went into a coma. The only vital information he felt she needed to know was the fact that her sister was in love with a man.

Someone she probably could not be with.

It had always been a sort of shock for Aria that her sister, who had nothing but zero tolerance for people, could get close enough to someone and fall so deeply in love with them.

However, stabilizing her condition had been so hard because of the disorders that were coupled with treating her illness. The previous months they had spent for therapy were the worst, it was as if she got even harder to handle and commune with. Her self-hurt got worse.

Just a few days ago when she was getting a dressing after her first surgery, she fainted when she excused herself to use the bathroom and had been unconscious for days again. The surgery was a 65% success with a low-risk rate, but it seemed as if her body couldn’t take stress as the day went by.

“Her vitals are improving, ma’am. You do not need to worry. Her therapies over the months too, seem to be working well. She should be out in a few months,” the nurse, who had been around since the very first day they brought Ariana, assured Aria with a smile.

“When will she stop fainting?” She turned to ask the nurse, hoping for a positive and sure reply. Nothing less than that.

“The doctor is coming to tell you, ma’am,” the nurse bowed and worked away immediately with the medical tools she had in the stainless bowl in her hands.

“She has gotten the first surgery and the turnout was quite smooth, but we need to watch her first on how she recovers and the side effects it is having on her. We are yet to figure out the reason for her fainting,” The second doctor, who had been the one coming around for a few days after the surgery informed me, which made Aria sigh so hard because even the people she put her hope on, had no idea either.

~•`•`~

“She has been fainting too often and the doctors are unsure of what is wrong with her. Can you not come at all?” Aria’s voice sounded desperate as she spoke to Collin on the phone, when he called to ask how Ariana was doing.

“I am so sorry, Aria. I have quite a lot of things to do around here,” Collin responded apologetically. He was so sad and frustrated that he could not come, but it was more suffocating for him to handle knowing that Dalton’s men might still be watching his movement.

He couldn’t risk getting entangled with a scandal that he helped a billionaire’s wife to run away when she was sick, and also hid her from her husband and family for himself. They could even insinuate that he abducted her.

The media was scary.

“You are her good friend. Perhaps she needs a familiar touch or something,” Aria persisted again to see if he might change his mind, “Please. Can’t you just come around?”

“Okay, then. I’ll find time to come around,” he tried to convince with a calm voice across the phone.

He had been working harder than ever at his company and even in the other ones too, and he had been working secretly with Ariana’s assistant to maintain the company’s stability since it was already hers. According to her, Dalton never came around after her departure or after the storm that hit their family.

It frustrated Aria to the guts to hear that he wasn’t giving a particular date, but she couldn’t do anything or even ask him why because she wasn’t like her sister. She couldn’t force words out of people, or skillfully manipulate them to do her bidding. It was all Ariana’s forte.

Aria felt sat through the night as she sat beside her sister thinking so sadly about what she could do to help her sister’s situation. She was trying not to think of the worst scenario of her twin nearing her death, but her heart was beating fast because she didn’t think that she could stand reality. They were all by themselves now.

She could recollect well when she had woken up, the faces her eyes recognized at first, and the people they introduced themselves as. Apparently, they were part of the mafia group that her sister had spent her late teens working for and her early twenties.

They told her that Ariana was well-loved and received by most of them, because she was impressive and one of a kind. It was their time to return the favor.

But now, she was the one there for her.

“You have to be fine, Ria. You have to,” she sobbed gently, still holding her hands in hers.

‘•~`•`~•’

“Her pulse is kind of different from the last weeks, and she is constantly weak and unable to last long before complete exhaustion. I have done a full body CT scan for the fifth time to find out if anything is wrong, that we do not still know about,” the doctor, who was done examining Ariana, told Aria. She had woken up a few days ago, and seemed to be in better condition than before.

The only disturbance she made was for them to cut her hair which has been trying to grow back, lower than they had ever cut the hair. It made Aria concerned if anything was wrong with her sister, and if she wasn’t losing her mind already.

“Do you think it is because of the surgery? She has been acting weird too these days. Sulking over things and getting so angry. Please, are they side effects or something?”

“I do not think so, in my honest medical opinion. She is fine from the first surgery, and the drugs are working well too. I should have…..”

“The reports are here, doctor,” a beautiful and elegant nurse who just made her way into the room cut into the discussion, as her heels clanked hard against the smooth marble. “Good morning, Miss. Hamilton,” she turned to Aria, who bowed to greet her.

“Is that what I see here?” The surprised doctor adjusted their eyeglasses which had slipped to the bridge of his nose, as he turned to the nurse who had a pretty smile on her face.Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

“Yes, doctor. Miss. Ariana is twenty-three weeks gone. The baby has been cryptic for a while now which is why we haven’t been able to discover it until now. Thus, resulting in her weakness and tiredness because she is too weak to carry the….”

“My sister is pregnant?!” Aria yelled in exasperation, the moment she got the message context of what the nurse was trying to tell the doctor.